Failed You
by RandallBeast19
Summary: Fear's a failure, he failed to keep Riley safe and he's failed to make her happy. His friends attempt to make Riley happy but with disastrous results, as he wishes he could've stopped Anger's idea and done more for the girl he's promised to protect. He realizes upon seeing the console turn black that Riley can't feel anything anymore.


**I'm still with Randy and Art, but I've been exploring the Inside Out fandom and thought about blasting a stream of confetti from my head spout onto this fandom and write about the perspective of Fear during one of the movie's best scenes.**

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**~Failed You~**

The idea was beyond asinine and ridiculous, though they were out of options. Joy and Sadness are gone, Riley's entered some semi-depressed apathetic state of mind, her mind wasn't the bright and cheerful place it was, four of the five islands of personality had fallen, and they're desperate to stop the degradation of their host's mind, it was their job to be there for Riley and right now, they're doing a horrible job.

Since Riley Anderson was born, Fear swore to himself that he'd protect her, he'd be the emotion there to keep her safe, which physically, he was doing his job, but emotionally, he was an utter failure at keeping her mental and emotional health strong. Running away from home and heading back to Minnesota was a disaster in the making, she's only eleven years old, for orb's sake!

"Oh great, there goes Honesty Island fallen straight down into the dumps." shrugged Disgust, rolling his eyes mockingly at Anger. "At this rate, we won't have any islands by the time we reach Minnesota, genius."

"Guys, are we really doing this? Riley's only eleven and there's a whole number of bad things that can happen to her, especially on a bus full of strangers." responded Fear, grabbing the controls and looking at Anger and Disgust with worry in his eyes. "I mean, this is serious. We're talking about doing something crazy."

Anger ignored Fear's concerns and simply pushed the nerdy and jumpy emotion back. "Look, we have no core memories. We want Riley to be happy, let's get back to Minnesota and make more." He resolved, taking control as Riley loaded her backpack with a few of her belongings and a bagged lunch, before heading on out.

With Joy gone, Anger's in the driver's seat and he's not the kind of emotion you want to get on his bad side, Fear's been burned lots of times by his friend's temper and in some cases, literally set on fire when he erupts. Disgust wasn't fully on board either, but she didn't have anything better. Fear wished that Joy was back and she could hopefully correct this downward spiral Riley's going in.

Then, Family Island began to shake and rumble outside Headquarters, Fear froze as he turned to his horror and saw the last island began that horrifying chain, it didn't help that Riley had become nearly unemotional, not even saying anything to her parents and just walking out the door without saying goodbye or that she loved them too.

"Family Island, it's starting to break down!" gasped Fear in horror, his eyes widening as he clutched his chest and began hyperventilating, he felt like he was gonna have a panic attack right then and there.

"She took the idea, nitwit! There's no going back!" yelled Anger, looking back at the controls and pushing forward. "Riley's happy back in Minnesota and life was fair to her there, there's no point being in this dump called San Francisco!"

Disgust looked back at Fear and gave him a somewhat sympathetic look, which he simply nodded to her as such. This whole thing of moving to San Francisco was just a disaster. The new house was a dump, the pizza is horrible, Dad's stressed out about work, and the movers have misplaced their belongings and they won't be arriving for weeks. Riley's also become distant from her parents, friends, and even her hobbies, screaming about quitting hockey after a mess up.

As much as Fear wanted to grab the controls and take Riley back home, thinking maybe Mom and Dad could talk with her and possibly help her through this rough patch, he wasn't the one in charge and Anger's stubbornly going through with the idea, besides he was right, Riley took the idea and that meant, they're with her on this.

"Do we even have a plan when we reach Minnesota? There's no way we can stay back at home again." remarked Disgust.

"Why the heck not? Mom and Dad got us into this mess and they can pay to get Riley out of it, they can pay in full for doing this and bringing us to this dump!" Anger shot back, smashing his fist on the console. "First this place ruins pizza, now San Francisco's ruining Riley's life! Enough's enough!"

Watching the screen and seeing Riley walk the streets of this place was almost too much to handle, Fear thought of the possibilities of Riley getting attacked by some crazed homeless guy, encountering a gang or something, coming in contact with some diseased rats. Earthquakes were also something he thought of, those happen often in California and last thing he wanted to see was the whole town go underwater or Riley get crushed by a building.

"Is that someone walking towards us? Let's cross the street." suggested Fear, just as Riley's cellphone rang and gasped. "It's Mom, she's onto us!" He gasped, pacing around nervously and grabbing a paper bag to blow in.

"What do we do?" asked Disgust, seeing her purple friend freaking out and nearly losing it. Poor Fear seems like he's having the worst of it, possibly even worse than Riley.

"Riley needs core memories. We keep going!" came Anger, as Riley promptly hit ignore on her phone as Family Island began cracking and crumbling. Great, Riley's gonna sever her remaining connection and her most important one.

Putting the phone away, Riley looked both ways, thanks to Fear briefly getting the controls, and safely crosses the street, arriving at the bus stop as the bus just pulled in. Using Mom's credit card, she paid for a ticket back to Minnesota and got her place in line.

Then, the phone began ringing again and sure enough, it was Mom. Fear was blowing into the bag more and more rapidly, as concern filled the voice of Disgust. "Oh-no, it's Mom again!" shaking Anger's shoulder in response. "What do you do?"

"Uh..." Anger stuttered, he himself unsure if what they're doing was right as Riley ignored the call once more, as Family Island continued to break down and large pieces of it fell down to the Memory Dump. The reality of what they're doing began setting in for Anger. "This is madness! She shouldn't run away!" He put his hands over his head, as Fear popped his bag.

Disgust rushed over to the console, grabbing the idea bulb and attempting to remove it. "Let's get this idea out of her head!" She yelled, finding the bulb wasn't moving as Anger tried to help.

"Ah, it's stuck!" yelled Anger, wanting to yell every curse word in the book and angrily pushing the console.

"Oh, great! scoffed Disgust.

"What do you mean, it's stuck?" asked Fear, as this gloomy blackness emerged from the bulb and started to turn the console black.

"Now what?" came the voice of a very shocked Disgust, seeing this blackness consuming the console.

"No, no, no, no, no! What is this?" gasped Fear, utterly horrified at what he's seeing. Gloom's taking over and that doesn't bode well for Riley or the emotions.

Frantically, Fear and Anger worked together in their own irrational way of trying to remove the idea, with Anger attacking the console with a work chair and Fear attempting to use a crowbar to pray the idea from the console, ending up hitting himself with it and falling to the floor as Riley boards the bus and goes to her seat.

"How do we stop it?!" asked Fear, almost begging if his friends had any ideas to stop the corrupting gloom on the console.

"I got it!" said Disgust. "Make her feel scared, that'll make her change her mind!"

"Brilliant!" smiled Fear and jumping over to the console, frantically pushing buttons to scare this idea out of Riley's head.

"I know, it's brilliant, do it!" screamed Disgust.

"Agh! Nothing's working! What? Why isn't it working?" panicked Fear, banging down on the buttons like a mad emotion.

Anger stepped over and pushed him aside, taking over and grabbing the levers. "Let me try!" He attempted, just as Fear and Disgust joined in, though all of their efforts were in vain as the blackened gloom filled the console.

"Great, you guys broke it!" remarked Disgust, as she and Anger tried everything they could to stop Riley.

However, it dawned upon Fear as he watched Anger and Disgust on the controls, seeing the blackness quickly overtaking the console and shutting it down. He felt a cold chill run down his spine and looked back at his two friends, blinking a couple times as, realizing that it's too late.

"Guys, we can't make Riley feel anything." Fear gently replied, sadly looking at the console, as Riley's rendered apathetic and she's got an emotionless look upon her face as she gazes out the bus window.

"What have we done?" came Anger's voice, filled with guilt and looking at the screen with Fear and Disgust by his side.

Fear almost felt like Sadness in this one moment, he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry his eyes out now. He's failed, he's failed his promise of keeping Riley safe and now he's failed in trying to make her happy, now her mind is destroyed and she's likely never gonna be the same again, an emotionless and depressed shell of the beloved monkey he's spent over eleven years protecting and loving with his fellow emotions.

It was all Anger's fault, yeah, last night's Dream Duty was terrible, but it didn't mean they should run away. Part of him wished Joy was here, but another part of him inside knew that Sadness was needed most. Joy was partly to blame for this, if she didn't try to remove that sad core memory, then maybe things wouldn't be as bad as they were. Riley needed to feel sad at times, it was all part of being normal, she didn't need to be happy all the time, but she for sure didn't need to be like this.

As he laid there on the floor, he reached over and grasped a purple memory, seeing it as one of the times he stepped in for Riley and kept her safe, clutching the memory orb close to his chest and quietly sobbing into the memory, his tears only brightening the memory in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Riley, I'm sorry I failed you." He whimpered and sobbed into the memory orb, hanging onto it and grasping for hope, no matter how fleeting it felt. "I should've stopped this, but it's too late. I failed."

Disgust and Anger turned away from the screen, it was too much for either of them watch. Disgust saw her friend curled up into a ball and slowly approached him, placing her hand onto the sobbing purple emotion's back and comforting him the best way she could.

"We all failed Riley." sadly replied Disgust, as Fear sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes, just as Disgust pointed the finger to Anger. "But the moron here is mostly to blame for it."

Might as well get a shot or two in on Anger now that Riley's gonna remain in this apathetic state indefinitely. All they could now was hope for perhaps a miracle to happen, or for Joy and Sadness to return and somehow turn things back to normal. Fear wiped the tears from his eyes, dropping the memory and slowly getting back up.

"I wish for the old Riley to come back." whispered Fear to himself, walking away from the console with his head hung low.

**The end.**

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**I have a little soft spot for Fear, he's my favorite out of the five. Not to mention, the runaway scene and Riley seeking comfort from her parents was always such a touching moment, especially re-watching the scene makes the tears flow. I hope you all liked my little take on this scene, and it'll be a pleasure if you guys make sure to review, favorite, and follow, I welcome the feedback! RandallBeast19, taking flight! **


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